Time for a PvE Server?

[HD2300]

Is it time for a PvE server?

90% of former UO players are PvEers.
Over 6 digits (over 100,000) PvEers left because of griefing pre-Trammel.
Almost every other MMORPG has PvE servers, even AoC.

Many players left for Everquest and WoW, even though they are themepark games, because EA didn't give p(l)ayers what they wanted, a PvE sandbox game.

If a Classic shard was seriously considered, then why not seriously consider a PvE shard where the potential target market is 10 times greater.

The very short amount of time to develop it would surely be worth it, as UO would gain many new and returning p(l)ayers, and that would ensure that UO keeps on running for many years to come.

Why or why not? Discuss.

Theo GL posted this idea earlier. This thread is for discussing the idea. Everyone does realize, that more players eventually means there will be more PvPers, dont they?

 

[Viper09]

I really don't think we need one. We already have them on all production shards really. Just don't go to fel and there you have it.

The only difference a PvE shard would give would be power scrolls without PvP and one single less facet. Hardly worth the devs time IMO.

 

[Cirno]

The issue I see with the question of PvE (or otherwise non-PvP shards), aside from their discussions currently contributing to a rather epic bout of insomnia, is that the PvE playstyle has hardly been marginalised.
PvP has been largely excluded from most developments in the decade+, so asking for a shard that embraces that playstyle seems quite reasonable.
PvE has almost everything on production shards, with the exception of power scrolls. Making a PvE shard won't do a whole lot aside from allowing the gathering of those scrolls (in the form of farming to the point of saturation) without PvP.
There will still be obnoxious people in general chat, there will still be griefing, there will still be harassment.

My thoughts on it are that, if the Classic Shard concept was a "waste of resources", then the development of a non-PvP shard would be an exorbitant waste.

 

[Symma]

What would the point of PvE server be? When most shards are nearly all PvE anyway.

This game is pretty much just PvE...

 

[Vlaude]

Hey HD just let me know what scrolls you need, I'll sell them to you

 

[Soulstomp]

yup its time for a PvE server , well sorta id say make a clasic server wich is set as fel rules ,

then make all production shards 100% tram based , 1 solution for 2 problems.

the dev team can then focus on 3 sorts of shards, Siege based (PvP), Clasic based(PvP), PvE based production shards.

:bowdown:

 

[Vyal]

This thread should be moved to the rants forum.
Go play a game dedicated to that type of thing, like you say almost every other mmo is like that so go play one of them.

I can make up numbers also, over 90% (like 50,000) players wanted a classic shard but you don't see that happening now do ya?

 

[Tox The Murder]

And EA wonders why it is losing players to All Fel Free Shards.....

 

[Vyal]

And EA wonders why it is losing players to All Fel Free Shards.....

It's all I play, rarely do I ever login to play EA shard.

 

[Tox The Murder]

....... *claps*

 

[phantus]

I love how all these clearly PvP minded players jumped on this thread like it was a lonely blue with an uninsured suit at the yew gate.

The problem with UO is not the ruleset HD. It's the support and it has been since shortly after AoS. You can't support a game when you change the location of the team and producers every year for multiple years in a row. Now we buy a new company and put them in charge every year and they change the priorities set by the company that made them the year before. The new company takes care of it's flagship and says give those before the bare minimum.

They missed the only chance to get a big infusion of returning and new players when the axed the idea of the classic server. I believe that decision was made in haste and made based on the resources that UO has to devote to their entire offering. ie A classic shard or keep "supporting" the ones we got.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Is it time for a PvE server?

90% of former UO players are PvEers.
Over 6 digits (over 100,000) PvEers left because of griefing pre-Trammel.
Almost every other MMORPG has PvE servers, even AoC.

Many players left for Everquest and WoW, even though they are themepark games, because EA didn't give p(l)ayers what they wanted, a PvE sandbox game.

If a Classic shard was seriously considered, then why not seriously consider a PvE shard where the potential target market is 10 times greater.

The very short amount of time to develop it would surely be worth it, as UO would gain many new and returning p(l)ayers, and that would ensure that UO keeps on running for many years to come.

Why or why not? Discuss.

LMAO. Thank you very very much. I needed a good laugh to start my day off. IMOP this is one of the (fill in the blank, one or more words) ideas I have heard. Enough said.

 

[Tox The Murder]

Does EA even realize how many ppl they've lost to free shards over the year. On averge a night some of them can support 1000-2000 players! EA has lost many ppl to DF,EQ and others. UO is slowing dying and EA refuses to do anything about it IMO

 

[Podolak]

I would be against a PvE server as I would not want resources invested in something we pretty much already have on production shards.

However, if such a shard existed I would want transfers turned off so they could keep their no risk power scrolls off our servers.

 

[Amber Moon]

Doesn't seem like they have enough time for the servers they have.

 

[ChReuter]

Is it time for a PvE server?

90% of former UO players are PvEers.
Over 6 digits (over 100,000) PvEers left because of griefing pre-Trammel.
.

Where exactly do you get your percentages and numbers?

 

[HD2300]

Where exactly do you get your percentages and numbers?

By former devs.

 

[Aran]

What we need is power scrolls in Trammel. That would improve the game 100x.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Is it time for a PvE server?

90% of former UO players are PvEers.
Over 6 digits (over 100,000) PvEers left because of griefing pre-Trammel.
.

Where exactly do you get your percentages and numbers?

Where exactly do you get your percentages and numbers?

By former devs.

If we would have lost 100K players pre Tram then they would have shut UO down. LOL This gets funnier all the time. App. 100K players were the entire player base of UO back then. I think you have AoS and pre Tram confused there. I know devs too, lol.

 

[Korik Bloodguard]

There is no reason to include a PvM server when the majority of existing servers, with their in-place infrastructure, history and population, are PvE oriented. It is entirely up to you whether or not you engage in pvp - consentual or nonconsentual.

You're asking for wide, sweeping changes in a game which doesn't have the vitality and mutability which it once did; and for changes which are entirely unnessissary and effectively in place already.

The onus is entirely on you to engage or avoid PvP as you see fit.

 

[Korik Bloodguard]

By former devs.

Conjecture detected. Citation needed.

 

[Anira Cuilwen]

Classic ruleset shard was offered but noone was interested in it. Shard was empty within few weeks. I doubt they'll consider it again.

 

[Theo_GL]

Is it time for a PvE server?

90% of former UO players are PvEers.
Over 6 digits (over 100,000) PvEers left because of griefing pre-Trammel.
Almost every other MMORPG has PvE servers, even AoC.

Many players left for Everquest and WoW, even though they are themepark games, because EA didn't give p(l)ayers what they wanted, a PvE sandbox game.

If a Classic shard was seriously considered, then why not seriously consider a PvE shard where the potential target market is 10 times greater.

The very short amount of time to develop it would surely be worth it, as UO would gain many new and returning p(l)ayers, and that would ensure that UO keeps on running for many years to come.

Why or why not? Discuss.

I posted the same thing and it got moved to Speils and Rants by our illustrious moderator team.

I'm all for it 100%. I prefer co-operative play games and have no interest in fighting/killing/griefing other players. I get zero enjoyment from it.

Nor do I enjoy the endless bickering by the PvP crowd. Its an endless stream of name calling, acusations and whining. Its amazing how emotional and how much self worth is seemingly tied to this game by people. Its psychotic-like scary.

 

[Liquid_Ape]

What we need is power scrolls in Trammel. That would improve the game 100x.

Really? Why not just ditch power scrolls all together and just raise the skill cap to 120 across the board for the appropriate skills. That way you wouldn't have to risk dying in Fel OR in Tram!


Off topic, weren't you in a thief guild on Chessy about 10 years ago?

 

[Liquid_Ape]

Classic ruleset shard was offered but noone was interested in it. Shard was empty within few weeks. I doubt they'll consider it again.

The Shard of the Dead was in no way a classic ruleset shard. It was never described as such and the devs even came out and said it was a temporary Halloween shard just for fun.

 

[Woodsman]

Really? Why not just ditch power scrolls all together and just raise the skill cap to 120 across the board for the appropriate skills. That way you wouldn't have to risk dying in Fel OR in Tram!

I know you're being sarcastic, but honestly, power scrolls have never set right with me. A lot of things with Pub 16 didn't sit right with me, but power scrolls especially.

UO is supposed to be a sandbox. With Pub 16 and the non-crafting power scrolls, you're in a sandbox until you hit 100 in certain skills. All of the sudden, if you want to max out certain skills, you have to hop onto one of two rails - farming gold to pay another player a substantial amount (in some cases) for the right to advance past 100 or forcing you to slog through champ spawns with your fingers crossed and hoping you get the scrolls you need.

Power scrolls aren't as bad as Trammel or AOS's itemization as far as changing the dynamics of the game, but they are very bad because you're in a sandbox until you hit 100 and then all of the sudden you're forced to make one decision or the other if you want to advance.

The choice to do what you want to do is taken out of your hands if you want to advance past 100 in certain skills.

I know they intended to use them in part as a lure to get players into certain areas or to engage in certain activities, but I really don't think that worked out nearly as well as they had hoped, and I think they should take a look at it. Some are much cheaper than they used to be, but some are still very expensive, and it's pretty hard to explain to a new player that they are running around in a sandbox until they hit 100 in certain skills.

A lot of us remember pre-power scroll days when you do your thing and you max out your skills the way you want to, not reach a certain point and then pay somebody for the privilege, or waste a lot of time on champ spawns and then go raise your skills once you've consumed the scrolls.

I would say dump power scrolls and just make it so that after a player has been around X amount of months, their skill caps are raised from 100 to 120, and then let them decide what to do when they hit 100. Start putting some of the sandbox back in the game.

 

[Kiminality]

I posted the same thing and it got moved to Speils and Rants by our illustrious moderator team.

If by "posted the same thing" you mean "created a troll thread on this topic" then yes, you did.

 

[aoLOLita]

I'm all for a PVE shard. Every time a decent template is developed, somebody in the PvP camp cries how overpowering it is. Mystic-Mage is a case in point. By time I got mine to 120/120 Mystic/Focus, the class got hit by the nerf-stick 3-4 times...

If a certain class or skill set "overpowers" PvP combat too much, just don't allow it in Fel.

 

[Javin]

whats the E stand for in PvE ? LOL

Yes imanewb and im proud of it!@

~J

 

[Cirno]

The E is for something along the lines of "Environment"
Like a lot of things, though, there are probably other interpretations.
It's a sort of cover-all term for "player versus things that are controlled by the game"

 

[HD2300]

Conjecture detected. Citation needed.

cliff-- PvP in UO may have been popular with some, but it turned others off. During SWG beta, when people were pushing the devs to do more PvP, Raph Koster (creative director for both UO and SWG) said that UO lost "six digits" worth of subscribers because of ganking.... That's a significant percentage of their playerbase.

Multiverse Network :: View topic - Offline mode

This went on for months as players who didn't enjoy PvP complained and complained on the forums about how they couldn't step outside the cities without getting ganked. So EA listened, and they created the first shard: Trammel, where there was no PvP. The original, PvP-enabled world [Fel] became a ghost town overnight;

The Infamous Brad - Five Years, and So Much Wasted: Neocron

Where does the 90-95% come from?? Pretty much that is the accepted number. Take your pick...
General: Legendary Failures of Legend, Part One - News Discussion - General Discussion - MMORPG.com Forums
VN Boards - UOVault Poll: PvP - How often do you participate in PvP fighting?
Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn
Tobold's MMORPG Blog: Ultima Online Pre-Trammel
I get so frustrated by people complaining about Trammel - Britannia Tavern (General) - Ultima Online - MMORPG.com Forums

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The time to have designated PvP and PvE shard was when Trammel was introduced. However because Trammel was first a housing expansion and second a ruleset tweak, we have what we have now and I don't really see EA forwarding any money to open more shards.

I could probably work up a "proposal" on what I would consider a "veteran PvM shard" that would tweak the current system to be more of a challenge within the PvM/PvE systems, but it really would only be mental exercise as it would hold no sway with any dev team in the first place.

Besides, I don't think there should be a fully non-PvP shard, people should have the option available, but I wonder if the game would be better off if they were able to move PvP into consent-based systems assuming they took the time to actually work out significant and desirable reasons to be involved (as well as balancing it as much as possible, getting on top of and staying on top of fixing bugs, exploits, and imbalances within said system).

However, by and large, the chance to really do something with shard-by-ruleset was 10+ years ago.

As it is now, they've missed several opportunities to really turn the game around thanks to the multiple moves, shunting the game from one sub-company to another, hiring and firing teams, etc. What wasn't too long ago a sense of actual direction now just seems like aimless free-floating.

 

[Kael]

Classic ruleset shard was offered but noone was interested in it. Shard was empty within few weeks. I doubt they'll consider it again.

That wasn't a classic shard..it was a mockery of the game

 

[Kael]

Isn't Trammel, Malas, Tokuna and Ilshenar all PVE ???

 

[Zosimus]

My thoughts on it are that, if the Classic Shard concept was a "waste of resources", then the development of a non-PvP shard would be an exorbitant waste.

Excellent statement!!!!


Tram is the PvE side of the game and you can do pretty much in any facet they have. Reds are stuck in fel where blues has access to all facets.

 

[Vyal]

here is the point fel is how the game started and a lot of players remember it that way and have played since then and there is enough of us to play a shard like that but it won't ever happen. You got how many other facets now to not worry about getting killed by a red and not have to compete in the game at all. Anyone can just sit back and push buttons to kill a monster takes skill to do it while other people also want to kill it. :gun:

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I think the game does not need, and will not get, more rules sets and more servers.

-Galen's player

 

[AesSedai]

- No. For the same reason I have been against a Classic Shard: EA does not provide UO with enough resources to make this worthwhile, at this time.

And if there were enough resources available, the only benefit I can think of at this time would be red-free (not end-stage crashing) Champion Spawns. Luckily I enjoyed plenty of that when they kicked us out of spawn areas for a few minutes when we died (reds and blues shared an equal risk: you die, you just may miss the rewards); yet I do feel for those that did not get to enjoy those glory days of Champ Spawns.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

And let me add that, while this is a legitimate request to be sure, it is also an excuse to resurrect the custom shard issue.

-Galen's player

 

[Giles]

I also vote for powerscrolls to be available at champ spawns in tram. Was fine in the beginning (fel only), but at this point should be available to both play styles

 

[Vlaude]

I also vote for powerscrolls to be available at champ spawns in tram. Was fine in the beginning (fel only), but at this point should be available to both play styles

Summary of Trammel champ spawns: 2-5 people work the entire spawn up. 15-20 suddenly appear when the champ is up. 6 walk away with scrolls, usually not including those who worked the spawn. At least in Fel if your group knows how to fight you won't always have that problem.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Easy fix: Use an internal point system that takes earlier spawn into account.

 

[Vlaude]

...

Easy fix: Use an internal point system that takes earlier spawn into account.

Easier fix: keep it as it is now.

 

[Viquire]

43 posts and no one has bothered to say that there is no PvE in this game. We, in UO, have PvM.

Now, you want to talk about having a PvM server I'll engage. Very disappointed.

 

[HD2300]

43 posts and no one has bothered to say that there is no PvE in this game. We, in UO, have PvM.

Now, you want to talk about having a PvM server I'll engage. Very disappointed.

PvE = PvM + crafting
So PvM = PvE

 

[Woodsman]

43 posts and no one has bothered to say that there is no PvE in this game. We, in UO, have PvM.

Plenty of PvE.

We are talking about Players vs EA right?

 

[Anira Cuilwen]

I see no need for any new shard. And the freeshard players argument is silly. Those folks just don't want to pay the subscription that's all.

UO has incredibly more than any other mmo ever had and yet people keep complaining.

I think the problems are not game related. Looking at the many threads about I conclude that it's all about social issues.

 

[Vyal]

I see no need for any new shard. And the freeshard players argument is silly. Those folks just don't want to pay the subscription that's all.

UO has incredibly more than any other mmo ever had and yet people keep complaining.

I think the problems are not game related. Looking at the many threads about I conclude that it's all about social issues.

Most of the people who play free shards play because the shard itself is what they are looking for to play in UO. I for example play a shard that is all I ever wanted in a classic shard. If EA had a shard like it then I would have no need to play the free shard but it's my only option. So make sure you know what your talking about before you start passing judgement on people who play them.

 

[Cirno]

Most of the people who play free shards play because the shard itself is what they are looking for to play in UO. I for example play a shard that is all I ever wanted in a classic shard. If EA had a shard like it then I would have no need to play the free shard but it's my only option. So make sure you know what your talking about before you start passing judgement on people who play them.

But, I think there will be an element of value-for-money.
If EA opened a classic shard tomorrow, I imagine quite a few of the people who play classic-style free shards would have an internal response along the lines of "cool story, bro", and continue not paying to play UO.

 

[Vyal]

I don't think so. People would return to start fresh as long as there is not some stupid rule set like on sp or and item like glass swords. It's hard for people to understand so let's drop it....

A PvE server would be an extreme slap in the face to all the vets who have been playing since the game came out and have wanted a classic shard for years.